Cars Drive Greenwashing Efforts Forward...See What I Did There?

 Like fashion, the auto industry has made significant strides in making their products more environmentally-conscious. We discussed the electric car at length in class. Though it's still a pricey option, it is significantly less harmful to the environment than the conventional car. And, many hybrid vehicles have displayed improved fuel economy, which means we don't have to rely as heavily on oil and natural gas. But, at the same time, the auto industry will always be destined to take part in greenwashing. Why? No matter what the industry does, the automobile will always be detrimental to sustainability. Even if every vehicle we owned ran on efficient fuels and/or electricity, the production of cars depletes the world of resources, and the roads built to accommodate them will destroy the environment. For this reason, the auto industry commits the greenwashing sin of...

Sin of Lesser of Two Evils
A claim that may be true in the product category, but that risks distracting the consumer from the greater environmental impacts of the category as a whole.
For the sake of this post, I'm going to focus specifically on the hybrid car, which is most guilty of greenwashing lately. If the energy saved is used to make it more fuel-efficient, rather than make it more powerful, the hybrid vehicle is an improvement on the regular vehicle. It decreases our reliance on non-renewable resources. Car companies are smart to market these vehicles as environmentally-friendly because it's appealing to their market and it's not terribly far from the truth. However, car companies seem to be marketing as a means of distracting the consumer away from both the environmental impacts of the cars and the unethical activities of the companies. What follows are several examples of car companies committing this sin.

Toyota

Doesn't it look so green when it's in the middle of nature?

The Toyota Prius has become one of the most popular hybrid car models, with over a million sold by 2008 (http://tinyurl.com/6xwgfxn). It's also one of the most efficient hybrids; the 2009 model got 50 miles to the gallon. Toyota markets itself as a progressive company, with the tagline "Moving Forward." But, it's also a member of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a lobbying group that opposes better fuel standards. It only recently shifted its stance after receiving more than 100,000 protest messages (http://tinyurl.com/4pthepa). Side note: Essentially every major car company is a member of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, and nearly all have either introduced a hybrid concept or have sold them to the general public. 


Porsche 

Pretty nice car, huh? This is the Porsche 918 Spyder, the first publicly available hybrid sports car. It's powered by a 500-horsepower V8 engine, as well as two electric engines that provide 218 horsepower more. Top speed is 199 mph, and it'll get 78 miles per gallon. The car sounds like a decent hybrid until you get to the price: $845,000 (http://tinyurl.com/4c85ywe). A two-seater car used mainly for pleasure driving with a hefty price tag isn't exactly the more sustainable vehicle in the world. 


Lexus

*Note that Lexus is Toyota's luxury brand.
Like Porsche, Lexus is taking luxury to the hybrid level, though not to the same price/efficiency extreme. Pictured above is the Lexus LS600h L, one of several hybrid models Lexus offers and the priciest model you can buy. In terms of quantity of models offered, Lexus is doing pretty good, with five different options. And, this car has earned a Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle rating, so it's relatively nice to the environment. However, its good points run out pretty fast. For a hybrid, it has a pretty low mpg average at 21 mpg (http://tinyurl.com/4sojvlt), which isn't much higher than its non-hybrid counterpart. It's pretty likely that the energy produced by the hybrid engine is not going towards fuel efficiency, but rather towards increased performance, which can include faster acceleration and top speed. The 2008 version was reported to emit 8.7 tons of CO2 annually, with a pollution score of 8 out of 10. And, with a price of over $100,000, it's not really accessible to the general population (http://tinyurl.com/4aazgao). Overall, the idea of a hybrid luxury vehicle seems like an oxymoron; what advances the hybrid system makes are negated by the fact that fuel economy changes very little and the extra energy produces extra emissions. 


Audi

I thought this video profiling the company's greenwashing was very interesting. The basic premise of the Audi commercial profiled by the video is that everyone harming the environment is caught by a security squad, despite the fact that their crimes are relatively minimal. For instance, one man asks for plastic bags instead of paper at a grocery store and is immediately apprehended. At the climax of the ad, a roadblock is put in place and every car is inspected for their environmental violations. The Audi diesel vehicle is immediately allowed past the roadblock, and the commercial ends with the tagline "Green has never felt so right." It's true that by using diesel fuel, this Audi has reduced emissions, which is better for the environment than a regular car. However, the video points out that while a number of people are vilified for their minor environmental violations, no one says a word to the person driving the car, which is perhaps the greatest environmental violation of all. The process for obtaining diesel fuel is damaging to the environment, as is the gathering of resources to build the car. Inevitably, we are reminded that no matter how green a car is portrayed to be, it's still not a green form of travel (http://tinyurl.com/46bxpug). 


I'd like to end this post with a nod to one other greenwashing sin: the Sin of Fibbing, where environmental claims made are simply false. Nothing demonstrates this better than the following photograph of a car ad from overseas:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/anabananasplit/2434286975/in/pool-552240@N22 


There really is no such thing as zero impact anymore, especially when it comes to the auto industry.